Applying territoriality to steps in the buyer/seller process

Abstract

Territoriality is the drive of an individual to stake out, establish, maintain, and defend an area of space for personal use. The “area of space” may be physical or psychological. Industrial buyers and others involved in the buying process, as members of organizations, will act to establish individual territories within the organization and may also act to represent an organization's territorial needs. Because an understanding of the behavior of buyers is important to industrial sales people, and because the concept of territoriality is a mixture of psychological processes, physical behavior, and the space surrounding an individual, a Territoriality Scan System is proposed to assist the salesperson in improving his or her sales communications with industrial buyers. A salesperson can gather important information about an industrial buyer's psychological processes by observing the buyer's physical behavior and surrounding physical space using the Territoriality Scan System. These observational measurements can then be used to enhance the entire sales presentation.